Wednesday, 3 February 2010

This web app, I found, while reading the SL Alphaville Herald "tabloid" yesterday and I got such a kick out of it I just had to share.

Xtranormal is a web based* application that allows you to make animated shows with cartoon "actors". It is very easy to make fun movies using your own script. Now please, this is not Pixar or Universal studios, so don't expect uber shiny CGI . This is great fun and very simple to use.

Basically you are given some preset scenes and "actors" (yes luvvy) to work with. To each scene you can add your own lines for the actors to speak.Then you can add sound effects, animations and expressions from set menus with a simple drag and drop. It can feel a little limiting once you get into it but I had a real hoot. The text to speech and lip synching was very cool and with the ability to change the character voices another dimension is added.

The completed projects can be uploaded to youtube and/or kept on the Xtranormal servers. There is also a download and embed feature. The interface is really simple to use and very quickly you can produce very amusing cartoon or a funny personal message to someone.

Perhaps in the future there will be the ability for users to add scenes , actors, voices etc. It will be interesting to see where this sort of technology can go.

If you want to make your own cartoon and show it on this blog, let us know and we will embed your Spielbergesque feature!!